Mike Woods
| Art |

Mike Woods was born in Hertfordshire in 1967.

He studied fine art at Stevenage College in 1985, and it was during this time that he developed his fascination for oil painting.

Spending much of this period drawing and painting from the model. It was this, the greatest artistic discipline of all which has allowed him to develop such a confident approach to his work.

In 1986 he gained a place at Falmouth School Of Art where he pursued his painting with more intensity. He also became engrossed in making sculpture, particularly wood and stone carving. In 1989 he gained his degree in fine art. The experience of working in the round with sculpture has given Mike a remarkable talent for rendering the flat canvas with what seems to be 3 dimensional objects.

The artist liked Cornwall so much during his time at college that he now lives there with his wife who is also an artist and their two young children.

During 1988 he visited Italy and spent much of the time in Florence, studying renaissance painting and sculpture. This period of study has had a profound effect upon him.

Mike Woods has developed his own very personal and distinct style of oil paintialent for rendering the flat canvas with what seems to be 3 dimensional objects.

Mike Woods has developed his own very personal and distinct style of oil painting, with the combination of subdued colours and seamless painting technique his pictures are quite remarkable. He has described his technique of painting in these terms: Í try to gain the effect that the canvas has been stained with paint, in essence I aim to use my paint as thinly as possible, finely mixing the oil paint to achieve a pure and clean saturation of colour, with no evidence of brush strokes. The finished painting must have an unblemished surface, so as not to spoil the effect of form, light and shade, and the illusion of the Still Life objects.

Mike Woods work is continually developing and evolving.